So, what do we have here? A new album by Meshuggah? Well, not really. Though, there are some unreleased songs on Rare Trax, most of them are just re-releases of ones that appeared on old demos and other recordings which are no longer available. Had I not known that they are busy working on the true next full length, I might have considered this a cop-out. Fortunately for them (and us), they are, so I won's complain, and will instead enjoy this little appetizer they have graciously provided us with.

The album starts out with the song War, which was apparently recorded for Fredrik Thordendal's birthday. When, I first heard this, I was wondering if the wrong album somehow got placed in the jewel case during packaging, as with the exceptions of the vocals and guitar tones, this sounds nothing like the Meshuggah we all know and love. Indeed, War is a blistering death metal song that doesn's stop. The famous mathematically inspired stop-start riffing is nowhere in site. But don's take that as a bad thing. This song ROCKS.

It then continues with the three songs off their 1989 vinyl only release, which was limited to 1,000 copies. Think of a bridge between their current material and Ride the Lightning era Metallica, and you have a pretty good idea of what these sound like.

The next six songs were all recorded between 1990 and present and thus exhibit a sound much more in tune with their current material. Included in these is a remix of Concatenation, the opening track of Chaosphere. Also of special note, The Ayahuasca Experience is definitely an interesting listen. According to Meshuggah, they were most likely ?under some kind of influence? when recording this 'shing? as they call it.

Also included on Rare Trax are three mpeg videos. The second is a live clip of Elastic, and the third is a collection of various clips with no meaning what so ever. The first clip, however, is undoubtedly the highlight of the album. It is the video for New Millennium Cyanide Christ, which in my opinion is the greatest music video ever. No, I'm not going to describe it to you. Instead, I expect you to go out, buy the cd, and watch it for yourself.